Running a Mom Blog and Making Money

I did not start this site with the intention of making any money out of it.

Since the first day I started, I tried as much as possible to use free resources. Nevertheless, over time, in order to make the site better, I had to move to paid services where necessary, such has hosting. Where it was not too complicated, I tried to include some revenue-generating elements such as Google ads that would cost nothing to the readers except for their presence, interest in the advertised products and hopefully, their purchases that would finally translate into some small amount of commission to me.

Running a mom blog is not a money making business. Making money, in fact, is a full time job most of the time. Since I am unwilling to spend a large amount of time running this site – my priority is still my children and my family – this blog remains a ‘cost centre’ with ad and affiliate sales revenue not even covering a minuscule percentage of the cost of running the site. Do you know that the seemingly ‘successful’ mom blogs usually have a whole host of staff supporting the mom-owner? Do not be deceived into thinking that these moms are at-home-moms in the traditional sense. They are work-at-home moms. Their sites are full time jobs for them. Many of them have an office of staff supporting them. They do not balance between running a household (in the traditional sense of cleaning, cooking, running after the kids) and running a blog business. Many of them have housekeepers and babysitters or daycare arrangements, just like any other working woman. Just that their office is at home. I am not even sure I want to spend that kind of mental capacity on running a website. It just takes up too much time and energy that I am unwilling and unable to commit to.

Hence, this site will remain a money-sucking hobby for me for a long time yet. I am just happy to type up some of my nonsense now and then, share some of my resources with people who may find them useful, and be really tickled and thrilled whenever I get a positive response. Do I hope that one day this site will actually make enough money for me as in a full time job? Sure! Dreaming is free, isn’t it? If the Lord should bless me, I will certainly not refuse it.

Now, I come to what I really want to announce in this post. I am launching a SHOP on this site.

Here’s the thing : Where it is not too complicated or onerous or “too much” for the readers, I try to include revenue-generating elements. Not making money does not mean it is not a good idea to defray as much cost as possible. I have previously run an eshop years ago and I am honestly not interesting in running another one that sells things. The logistics of fulfilling orders just drives me nuts.

This SHOP that I am launching is simply a service. It is called a SHOP for lack of better alternative. What I have done is to make available in a zip file format some of my existing printables. Specifically, the Siwukuaidu templates and the Chinese Radical Minibook templates. Currently, they are available for FREE individually. It can be troublesome to download each and every one of them individually to print. Now, you have the option of getting all the files in one download but you pay a small fee for the convenience.

All the printables are still FREE for download if you go to the Printables section. So if you are not willing to pay for them, no worries. They are all still there for you. But if you have enjoyed this site and would like to contribute a little to the upkeep of it, or if you really appreciate the convenience of just one download instead of 17 different downloads, and don’t mind paying a little for the convenience, head over to the SHOP.

Lastly, another reason for the SHOP is because I wanted to learn how to set up a shopping cart. In the days when I ran my eshop, we used really, really primitive cart system. You won’t believe it if I told you what it was like. It took me many weeks to figure things out and sort out the kinks. The cart should be working fine. But should you run into any problem with it, please let me know and I will make sure you get what you paid for.